Stop scrolling and post two characters who bring you happiness.

Please spread if you can. I have a limited time to make this happen and I DESPERATELY don't want to lose my boy 😿😿😿😿😿😿😿😿😿😿😿😿😿😿😿😿😿😿😿😿😿😿😿😿😿😿😿😿😿😿😿😿😿😿😿😿😿😿😿😿

Mary Beth Hurt married Paul Schrader in 1983.

It would be funny if you didn't soon see how awfully better you can do. #WingsOfTheDove #HenryJames

This actually looks like good old fashioned artisanal plagiarism, not least because the August 2025 Guardian review wouldn't have been in LLM training corpuses in time for the Jan 2026 NYT review. It's interesting that the NYT writer thinks he can partially deflect blame by implicating AI, though!

At least Johann Hari used to plagiarise *by hand*

I'm not sure I trust Kieran in a gondola.

Stop scrolling and post two characters who bring you happiness. "You're losing your arm, you used to be better than that."

It used to be abortion that always turned into a discussion of "litmus tests." And look where scorning "litmus tests" got us with that one.

U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville and Alabama Secretary of State Wes Allen have launched vicious attacks on Muslims in recent months. Editor Brian Lyman writes that Alabamians must reject these attacks and any attempt to limit democracy to those who answer the altar call. https://ow.ly/eBMV50YzY3a

NSFW: Naked Maja, possibly Pepita Tudó. Painted in the 1790s by Francisco de Goya, who was born on this day in 1746.

Here are Warren and Shirley in a rehearsal publicity photo before she, as Variety would put it, ankled.

Goya - Autorretrato ante su caballete. #ArteYArt #HappyBirthday

today's semi-random theater photo: birthday boy Warren Beatty and Carol Haney in William Inge's A Loss of Roses (1959)

If you can't put it into an oven, it ain't a ramekin. Also, only a writer with no eye/ear for prose whatsoever would put the word RAMekin anywhere near the word RAHM.

Bette = Rahm Miriam = salad container

“I thought that [Bonnie and Clyde] was good. But I’m really of the opinion—and it seemed to me even then—when you make a movie, you don’t really know what you’ve made until years later." Happy 89th birthday to Warren Beatty, and I hope he knows now.

It's the "unwittingly" that makes that one a true classic. Imagine trying to get an "unwittingly" past the publicity department now.

Fine, the Bible does have literary and historical significance, but the chances that evangelical teachers will not abuse this requirement approach zero.

Maunder [MAWN-der] (v.) - 1. To mumble, or grumble; to speak indistinctly; to talk incoherently; to wander in talking. 2. To beg alms. (n.) - A beggar. Used in a sentence: “He had a rare talent for maundering at great length while conveying, with admirable consistency, nothing of consequence.”

This is good, I like this. There is truth here. Also, it reminds me of my own ancient grievance about the same-iness of the way many trailers are made now—slow-slow-slow-[music builds]-FAST-[loud slamming end with "memorable" last image].

You will read a mass media piece at least once a week about the death of cinema but on a blazing sunny Saturday afternoon in Dublin I attended a completely sold-out screening of an only sporadically comprehensible 3D movie by Jean-Luc Godard, so I think maybe cinema will be ok despite all this crap.

Kathryn and I brought this dingbat home one year ago, following a very emotionally difficult time for us. Patricia, the dingbat, has been a boost to our spirits ever since. I realize she's not doing anything particularly noteworthy in these pictures. She does have the capacity to disappoint.

today's only vaguely random theater photo: birthday girl Flora Robson with Isobel Elsom in Ladies in Retirement

RIP Mary Beth Hurt, who was always great, but especially great when given the lead in Joan Micklin Silver’s CHILLY SCENES OF WINTER.

💔 Rest well Mary Beth Hurt (1946-2026), most recently featured on our screens on 35mm 🎞️ just last month in her feature film debut INTERIORS (1978). The film screened last month as part of our retrospective honoring the late Diane Keaton. Our condolences to Paul and their family and loved ones.

Mourning dove on its social media right now: "Found a great place for a nest! Right in town and lots of old world charm. The neighbors are kind of nosy but so far they seem mostly harmless."

Jean Shrimpton

Now I have a 2000+ word deeply researched piece about a silent film dog! AI could never.

There are many magnificent books out of print but it blows my mind to learn from my local bookstore that James Agee's & Walker Evans' deeply influential Let Us Now Praise Famous Men--to which, along w/ Slouching Toward Bethlehem, I owe my life as a writer--is out of print.

One of the most successful things I ever wrote has about 200 non-continuous words of something I wrote nearly 20 years before, when I was just coming into my own & didn't have the skill to support my ambition yet. The best thing is you can't tell.

I like the sound of the doves too. And now I'm singing Patsy Cline to myself. As I think of the past, and all the pleasures we had As I watch the mating of the doves... (yes, I realize it's originally Bob Wills and his other Willses, but Patsy's the one I know and love)

I wind up with an "outtake" file for almost anything I write that has some depth. I also have many half-formed unfinished pieces. And I hoard them like a crazed quilter because one of those scraps will come in handy some day. Nothing AI can do for me that my outtakes can't.

Yesterday my youngest told me a mourning dove was in our birdbath and hadn’t budged for “days” according to him. He’d walked up to check on it and the bird just blinked at him. Concerned, we looked up all this stuff about sick birds, got a box and an old towel and approached—and it just flew away.

I will never understand why rich people drive drunk. It's a terrible decision for anyone, but when you can afford an Uber or a driver, WHY???

Mexican filmmakers really got the noir genre. Along with France, Japan, and the US, it's one of the countries that produced some of the best noir ever. I adore not just Mexican noir but all the Golden Age Mexican stuff I've seen. Deeply frustrating that it's not more widely available in the US.

I'll also add that Silvia Moreno-Garcia clearly knows her noir. Her novels Untamed Shore and Velvet Was the Night were two of the very best modern noirs I've ever read. Highly recommended--would love to see film adaptations of both. Wish she'd write more noir but most of her work is in other genres.

A predictable #NoKings take from Jeremy Peters: A small turnout will be ominous, a large one will be meaningless, all protests from the left are merely a "primal scream," and none of them mean much. The NYT has always loved protests as history but hated them as news. www.nytimes.com/2026/03/28/u...

Is there something that happened in your life, maybe when you were too young to appreciate it, and it still breaks your brain a little? I’ll go first: I interviewed June Havoc for the Atlanta Constitution when I was 21-years-old.

Dirk Bogarde, Actor, Writer, #BornOnThisDay in 1921, in London 📸 Eve Arnold (1965)

Pic doesn't come close. Didn't even know who she was when I saw her. Overcome. #Fandomfriday @BCDreyer @TomBeerBooks

This really may be one of the best movies ever made about the popular mythology around cops and policing. boxd.it/1TSo

Heather Angel and friend for #Caturday. I love to spot Angel in her trademark "small but memorable" parts—the "street girl" who hears Vivien Leigh's confession in THAT HAMILTON WOMAN; youngest sister Kitty in PRIDE AND PREJUDICE; the pretty maid getting the eye from Cary Grant in SUSPICION 1/2

By The Day She Made Herself Into A Cat. #Illustration 1920 © Arthur Rackham

#BOTD #GloriaSwanson at her office at Puritan Dress Co., which produced her signature line of women's wear FOREVER YOUNG, New York, New York. 📸 Jack Mitchell 1960

"It's amazing to find that so many people, who I thought really knew me, could have thought that SUNSET BLVD. was autobiographical. I've got nobody floating in my swimming pool." —Gloria Swanson #botd At home with #GloriaSwanson in New York City, 1960 📸: © Jack Mitchell

Small donations add up to HUGE acts of compassion. You can make a big difference in the lives of these wonderful rescue animals for $5 a month! donorbox.org/mmfs-donate

Billy Wilder, 6/22/06 - 3/27/02